This post attempts to give streamlined instructions on how to access jhana (first or second jhana)[1] for beginners, aiming to be able to spend at least a few seconds there. It's based on my personal meditation experience and my experience coaching people.
This post assumes that you already know about jhanas and want to access them. (In future posts in this sequence I plan to talk about my own personal experiences with jhana and what I got from it.) Otherwise, as background: the jhanas are a set of highly pleasant mental states one can enter just through meditation.
Other posts I like that talk about jhana and experiences with jhana:
Speedrunning on-demand bliss for improved productivity, wellbeing, and thinking
Intention and basic theory
While you might do jhana meditation with the intention of getting benefit from it, jhana, at the end of the day, is about feeling good. It is meant to be pleasurable and help you be more connected to the world. So, you should Jhana meditation (or at least, the style of jhana meditation I teach) is meant to be pleasurable and help you be more connected to the world. So, even if you are approaching this for the benefits it might bring you, you should try to have a mental posture towards it that's about having fun, rather than it being some sort of 'exercise'. If fun (or pleasantness or satisfaction some kind of positive feeling or sensation) does not arise in your practice, then you are probably doing it wrong.
Two components are necessary for jhana: sufficient collectedness, and a positive feeling or sensation. When both are present, the positive feeling or sensation can form a positive feedback loop, and you get jhana.
I prefer to use the term collectedness rather than concentration because the latter gives people the wrong idea about how to shape their attention for jhana. 'Concentration' often makes my clients contract and strictly control their attention, which is not helpful. The shape of your attention should be more loose and relaxed but still 'put together', and for this reason I prefer 'collectedness'.
It is possible to have (other) thoughts and have threads of thought while in jhana. Mindlessness is not necessary. Specifically, I make a distinction between primary attention and secondary attention. When something is in your primary attention, you are totally 'immersed' in it, potentially to the exclusion of everything else. When something is in your secondary attention, you notice it and can have thoughts about it but you are not 'immersed'. The metaphor I would give is looking at something: the thing can be in the center in your field of vision and be clearest, but this doesn't prevent you from also having other objects in your field of vision. It is fine to have unrelated thoughts in the secondary attention so long as the primary attention is correctly situated.
There are two basic categories of obstacles to jhana: grasping and aversion. These are specific mental postures, like mental actions. You should try to think of these as less metaphorical than they are — there's a specific feeling or sensation in the mind that you can detect when you are grasping or avoiding.
Grasping is a reaching or a contraction towards getting something, or getting something to occur. So, for example, if you really want to access jhana, you might 'grasp' for it. You crave the desired outcome, you need it, you hunger for it. There's a kind of rigidity or contraction there that you can notice if you are perceptive enough. In this case, you have to try to not become attached to the desired outcome. That sounds impossible, but in my opinion there is a distinction between intention (or prediction) and grasping. You can intend to do something and take actions towards that goal, while not grasping for it. In this case, you should intend to access jhana but not grasp for it. A more mundane example of grasping (and its distinction from intention) is really rooting for a person or team that you support in a competition to win. You become very attached to the outcome and you feel like your self is very bound up in it (even though the nature of the competition means you cannot do anything to affect it). There's attachment to it.
Aversion manifests as a posture that keeps attention away from something, or a flinching reaction away from something. Ugh fields are an example of aversion. It's a kind of contraction or contortion of your attention so that you aren't 'touching' something mentally which is painful to touch. A mundane and concrete example is immediately banishing thoughts (a specific mental action/posture) about bills because the thought of having to pay them is painful.
Grasping and aversion can co-occur. For example, while meditating, you may develop itchiness in an area. You then might have aversion towards it and try to keep away attention from it to avoid 'feeling' it. At the same time, you might have grasping towards the idea of itching it so as to be relieved.
What to do before sits
A 'sit' is a period of formal meditation, where your sole intention is meditation.
Do not be sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation will make it much harder to access jhana since lethargy hampers high energy states and microsleeps break collectedness.
Take stimulants (caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, etc.) before sitting, if you typically do so. Take psychoactive medications as necessary.
Hunger is a very aversive sensation and even being a little hungry will make it much harder to access jhana. I recommend having a full meal about an hour before sitting, but don't eat so much that you become sleepy.
Be in a space where you will not be disturbed. It should have a comfortable temperature. Some noise is fine — I've found for myself that intermittent noise is better than constant noise, but this varies on the situation and what your preferences are. Mute phones and any other notification-generating devices.
If you use a fan, do not point the airstream directly at you where you can feel the air on your skin.
The room should be lit, but you should not have any light directly pointing at you. I do not recommend sitting in the dark as it promotes lethargy.
Sit in a comfortable position. Trying to ignore discomfort or pain while sitting is not appropriate for this meditation style, and discomfort and pain are aversive sensations that will make accessing jhana difficult. It is not necessary to sit in lotus position on the floor, as is traditional. When I sit on the floor, I do Burmese sit (one leg in front of each other with no overlap).
You may sit in a stool or chair with a backrest. However, I do not recommend sitting on a chair with a headrest or lying down, because this tends to promote lethargy and microsleeps. I do not recommend sitting on anything that is too cushioned and without a backrest (e.g. pillow, but yoga mat is not), because the body makes very small movements to keep itself upright, and these can become very apparent and distracting when you become more collected.
The sits themselves, and the method
I typically have my clients do 4 sits of 15 minutes of meditation followed by 15 minutes of interview/advice, for 2 hours total, and I recommend this structure for most people too. You do not need long sit times to access jhana. 15 minutes is more than sufficient to access jhana and stay there for minutes. The point of doing several short sits at once is that you can iterate and apply advice quickly, and having the memory of previous sits be fresh in the mind means you can compare experiences more easily.
Since you are doing this on your own, you can set however many sits you want structured however you want, but I recommend doing at least two in short succession so that you can do comparison.
Bodyscan meditation is what I've found works well for most of my clients. This is how to do it.
Imagine a 'scan line' at the crown of your head. Try to notice as much sensory information as you can about the area where the scan line is. Feelings of hot and cold, wind, pressure, clothing, itchiness, etc, even if the sensation is mundane or boring or repetitive. The scan line and whatever you notice where it is should be in the primary attention.
Slowly move the scan line down, and do the same wherever the scan line is. When you reach your shoulders, pick one arm and go down it, through to the fingers, then back up, then to the other arm, then back up the chest, and down. Do the same for the legs.
If mental distraction occurs, simply try to return to wherever you remember the scan line once was. If you forget, start at the crown of the head again. Having thoughts in the secondary attention is fine.
If especially noticeable/attention-grabbing sensory information arises before or after the scan line, resist the urge to have the scan line jump to them and therefore be in the primary attention. Them being in the secondary attention is fine.
The typical pace I aim for is one minute per full cycle, but you can have whatever pace you want as long as it's slow enough that you feel like you have enough time to notice what's happening at each area, and quick enough that you can complete at least one full cycle in a 15 minute sit.
Repeat this until 15 minutes passes. Typically, there will be a distinct 'phase change' when jhana arises.
You should think of jhana as going to sleep: it is not a conscious action that you take, but you simply arrange the circumstances to be as conducive to it as possible, and it will just occur. You cannot force it to happen and you should not try.
After each sit, you should try to remember (and perhaps write) as much as you can about the sit. With my clients I ask them to describe it and ask them a bunch of questions about it. For you, I still recommend writing or saying it out loud rather than just thinking, because verbalizing your thoughts makes you think more deeply about the experience.
The second important thing to think about is what adjustments to make to improve your sitting experience. These can be physical things like changing the way you sit so that your legs don't fall asleep, or mental things like adjusting the way you shape your attention, or your mental posture.
You should keep in mind that you are not beholden to the timer! You can choose to end a sit early if you feel like you got irreparably distracted in the middle of a sit and don't have enough time to get settled again, or for any other reason. You can also ignore it and sit for longer. This is also how I do it with my clients. In general, though, for beginners I recommend strictly adhering to the timer.
Experiences to expect when meditating
I sometimes refrain from talking much about this to my clients because it can bias them when reporting their own experiences to me. But since you are doing this on your own, here is what you can expect before jhana arises.
You might feel a kind of energetic or tingling sensation in an area. If it spreads out over a larger area (as you sweep the scan line up and down, it may spread), it might feel like the area is floating or being pushed upwards, or that it's 'charged or filled with energy'. Mostly it's physical, but when it's stronger it can manifest as exhilaration. When stronger, it can make you (want to) vibrate. This is called piti, and it has been translated as glee or rapture. I prefer to use the original Pali because it makes clients have fewer expectations as to how their experiences 'ought to be'.
You might feel also feel an emotion (more mental than physical) like joy. This can manifest in various ways, like gratitude, love, comfort, or satisfaction. It will feel different from typical joyous emotions because it will feel like it's not deriving from anything specific, that there is no 'reason' for the joy. This is called sukha, and it has been translated as happiness or joy. I also prefer to use the original Pali in this case to distinguish it from more regular happiness or joy.
First (or second) jhana is marked by having both piti and sukha, so experiencing them means that you are making progress.
Common mistakes and issues and advice for them
Piti and sukha will start to arise before you get jhana proper. You should not put the primary attention on them if they arise. If you do, they will vanish, or doing so will change the shape of your attention to be more contracted and have more craving. However, putting the secondary attention on them is fine. Given that the method is bodyscan, I have expressed this with the metaphor "you can touch it (secondary attention) but you should not press on it (primary attention), or try to conjure it (craving), or try to banish it (aversion)." You should try to predict or intend, but not crave piti and sukha. As you become more experienced, distinguishing between prediction or intention, and craving, will become more tractable.
Relatedly, do not try to chase after jhana itself. This kind of craving will put you further from it. As said previously, you should think of it like preparing to go to sleep. You should make the intention to access jhana and to do practices that will lead to it, but try not to become attached to those intentions or outcomes.
Try not to get frustrated if you cannot access jhana after several tries. If it gets too bad, I recommend stopping for the day, since frustration can be a source of aversion that prevents jhana. Stopping in the middle of a sit if you feel frustration, taking a break, and then starting another sit can also be good.
It is possible that you become very collected but have trouble spotting or feeling any pleasurable sensation that could bloom into jhana. This may be because you are having your attention be very contracted such that any possible pleasurable sensation that could arise is shut out. (In future posts I will explain an adjunct practice that is helpful for this: expanding awareness meditation.) A piece of advice I've heard elsewhere is to try to think of an uncomplicatedly pleasant memory and use the pleasant feeling there. This might work for you, but I tend not to give this advice to clients because I feel like it promotes mental distraction. If nothing else works, it's something to try.
Some of my clients have hangups around pleasure that does not come from specifically pre-approved sources, and feel that pleasure that arises from other places is suspect and corrupting. This can be due to guilt (feeling that one 'has not earned' the pleasure). (In future posts in this sequence I plan to explain an adjunct practice that can help with this: forgiveness meditation). It can also be due to concerns around wireheading, that if one has access to sourceless pleasure, one will not be interested in doing anything else. This is not the case for jhana. Jhana is pleasurable but it produces basically no craving for it. I don't feel the urge to do jhana meditation if I haven't done so for a while, the way I do for sugar or caffeine, and many times while in jhana I feel like I have 'had enough' and stop voluntarily even though I could go for longer. Nick Cammarata talks about this.
Experiences to expect if you access jhana
In the event you access jhana, the energetic feeling from it may carry over after the sit and you may have trouble sleeping on that night. This should pass the next day or couple of days. In the rare case that they don't, I recommend stretching and engaging in vigorous physical exercise.
You may also feel strong positive emotion (and facial expressions accompanying this), and this can persist even after the sit, perhaps even until the next morning. As an example, you might feel a strong urge to smile after a sit.
These experiences are most apparent after the first time you access jhana.
In the event that you do not access jhana after a session, typically nothing will happen. It is possible that you will feel tiredness, either immediately or the day after. This may be because meditation made you pay attention to how tired you already were, but were ignoring this sensation. It may also be because the way you are shaping your awareness is such that it's very contracted and compressed (similar to engaging in intense mental labor), and you need to make it looser.
(In future posts in this sequence I plan to talk about my experiences doing jhana for longer periods of time in a single sit as well as cumulatively.)
Advice for longer-term practice
For my clients, I typically advise having a session once or twice a week. Personally, I meditate a few times a week on average. Sometimes, I don't meditate for weeks. It is not necessary to have a daily practice to access jhana. I don't have a daily practice and didn't have one before I first accessed it. Many of my clients don't or didn't.
To improve how reliably you can access jhana, I recommend paying attention to the state just before you are able to access it. The minimum level of collectedness necessary to access it has been called access concentration. Paying attention and remembering how your mind and body feel like during this will give you a guide post that can lead you into jhana again in the future. There's a specific 'put together' feeling that you get while in that state and having a memory of it will be helpful.
There are times where one is 'closer' to jhana and can more easily access it. I personally refer to these as 'auspicious'. You should pay attention to your mental, physical, and emotional states to see which times are more auspicious than others. Paying attention to auspicious times is just as important as actually sitting. In general, auspiciousness is marked by higher baseline energy and higher sensory clarity. (In future posts in this sequence I plan to describe what auspicious times feel like to me.) You can meditate when you 'feel like it'.
It is not necessary to do always do formal and intentional sits. You can try meditating anywhere and anytime you feel it would be good (i.e. it's safe for you, and you feel that it's an auspicious time). I've done so while on the bus or waiting in queues and have accessed jhana during them.
I offer free 30 minute intro calls if you are interested to see if getting jhana coaching from me would fit you. You can book one here. You can see my jhana coaching page for more details.
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The first four jhanas each require more collectedness than the previous. So, typically someone will access first, then second, third, fourth. But this isn't a hard and fast rule, and sometimes someone will access the second jhana before the first, or the third before second, etc. (In future posts in this sequence I plan to talk about all the four material jhanas, which I teach.)
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